There is an especially American idea about attitude. The thought is if you have the right attitude, everything will work out. If you don’t, well then… Sorry, Pal. This idea infiltrates our entire culture. We can see this assumption in the movies from the 30s and 40s, the lead characters have to have spunk, grit, and that American CAN DO! outlook. And on and on the notion of attitude goes on.

This is the same idea that is at the foundation of positive thinking, the “secret,” thought is creative, and all of the mental power schemes that tell us to get our heads straight.

Here is an observation: some people with the “right” attitude don’t always succeed, and some people with the “wrong” attitude succeed.

There is only one factor that matters. Your underlying structure. The principle is this: the underlying structure determines your behavior. The right structure with the “wrong” attitude has a higher probability of success than does the “right” attitude within the wrong structure.

The right structure is structural tension, the tension formed between the desired state in relationship to its current state. What you want, and what you have. Notice that within this structure, there is no room for attitude, self-opinion, beliefs, past experiences, intention, and most of the rest of the anthems of self-help.

Tension seeks resolution. Setting up the right tension leads to motivation to take actions you need to accomplish the outcomes you want to create. One type of action that is often built into the process is learning. There is often a lot to learn about how to move from where you are to where you want to be.

Within the creative process, you may have various attitudes from affirmative to doubtful, to frustrated to optimistic, from steadfast to uncertain. To try to generate a synthetic positive attitude may reduce your awareness, sensitivity, and intellectual honesty, often the very factors you need to be clear about your current reality.

How you happen to feel any particular day is irrelevant in the creative process. You don’t need to give yourself a pep talk to get yourself going. You just need to position your strategic choices in relationship to each other. The primary choice will be the outcome you want to create. Your secondary choices will be those choices you need to make on behalf of your primary choice. Trying to maintain any particular attitude will distract you from the creative process.

For Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Over fifty years ago Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech, one of the most momentous speeches of the 20th Century. Why did this speech have the power to impact history? No other speech given that day or since has lived longer or had more influence on the minds and hearts of the entire world. Three factors make this stunning speech alive and relevant from the day it was first heard to today.

The first was Dr. King himself. If we compare his words to the other words spoken that day, we find something extraordinary. Nowhere in his speech is there bitterness, hatred, intolerance, or extremism. Instead, we find wisdom, love, vision, and truth.

How could this man who experienced the police dogs of the old South, the jail cell of Birmingham, the brutality of racism, the unspeakable crimes to which he was witness, rise to such enlightenment? He learned his lessons from Gandhi and Christ, and so, he could actually love his enemies, even while abhorring what they did. And because of this, he could bring friend and foe into a higher plane of reflection, where the noise of the then-present rage on both sides quieted down. This reflection was so quiet that one had to see the truth that existed exactly as it was; one had to measure his or her deepest values against that reality; one had to answer to what was highest in the human cause.

There are many very good biographies on Dr. King’s life. One of my favorites is Let The Trumpet Sound by Stephen B. Oates. When we study Dr. King’s life, we find that he wasn’t born with the transcendental wisdom that was one of his hallmarks. His personal journey was to rise from his own prejudice and reaction against bigotry to a deeper understanding of the human condition that allows such transgressions to exist. He learned about prejudice from his own prejudice. He learned about transcendence from his own experience of transcendence. He not only spoke about freedom and justice, he embodied it. Through his own self-mastery over his circumstances, he became uniquely qualified to lead, not only a movement, but the world.

The second factor was the speech’s content. Freedom is its own cause. Today, freedom is as much a world issue as it was in 1963. In some ways, ironically, more so.

Freedom is a hard notion to grasp and a harder reality to achieve. The human heart and soul long for freedom – freedom of thought and individuality, freedom to live one’s life as one sees fit. As an aspiration, freedom is opposed by many forms of tyranny: sometimes of the state, sometimes one’s society, sometimes one’s family, sometimes one’s own inner chains. In the world today, the battle between extreme worldviews that would demand of people their strict devotion to dogma is the first major challenge and battleground of the new century. This is yet another version of the historical struggle in which doctrines of conformity are in mortal conflict with a profound desire for freedom.

When King talked about freedom, he wasn’t speaking in the abstract. He had reached a level of personal freedom in which even the prospect of his own death was not a deterrent to what he saw as right action for the higher cause of freedom and justice. King embodied a type of freedom that, as Robert Frost described in his poem It’s Hard Not to Be King When It’s In You And In The Situation, is “the type of freedom that is not granted by kings.”

The third factor that made King’s speech more than just a speech was the form. He began by describing the original governing principle of the United States: freedom. This was the promise that we had made to each other. This was the seed from which the great nation had been brought into being. Then he described the current condition that existed: injustice, racism, brutality, and oppression. He then described his dream, his vision for America and for the world. It is a vision in which people can join together freely and build something grand, something better than we have seen so far in history, something that is worthy of that which is highest in our humanity. His speech was the essence of the creative process and structural tension: to envision the future and hold that dream while being truthful about reality.

His speech has entered into the international consciousness. His dream was one that all children understand when they ask the simplistic question, “Why can’t people get along?” No matter what condition the world finds itself in, be it the dark periods or the ages of enlightenment, we have the entrenched hope of peace, freedom, justice, and a world that can join together to build its civilization, to be able to join hands and sing, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last.”

To explore these thoughts, we must leave politics at the door. I know that’s a hard task nowadays in such a political world. But once politics is added to questions of democracy, it is hard to have a true discussion about democracy.

A few ways to define democracy:

Government is determined by the people who are governed.

The rule of the majority and the protection of the minority.

Freedom of the individual.

These are the most common ways people think about democracy. I have an additional way of thinking about it. Democracy, at its best, is a manifestation of a collective creative process. People are able to join together to create to society they want to create.

These days, the way people argue about capitalism and socialism is absurd. Why? Because of the “ism” at the end of the words. “Ism” means that it is a belief system. Once something is reduced to a belief system, we have to pit one belief against another belief. We can see what has happened out of this. People argue like they are talking about religion. Then, too often, the belief system becomes connected to their identities. The term identity politics is an accurate way to describe how the person’s political belief system is fused with how they define themselves. To consider a different point of view can lead to the feeling of one’s identity being attacked. If you haven’t read Dr. Wayne Andersen’s and my book Identity, please do if you want to see this principle developed in no uncertain terms.

Politicians’ business is to get elected. The current underlying structure is incapable of supporting a true democracy in terms of it being a collective creative process. Politicians nowadays must vilify those who are running against them. It wasn’t always this way. There were times in the past when there was a built in respect for political opponents. And there were times, for example in the 1830s and 1840s, when everyone running for office tried to paint their opponent with the worst wickedness there was. These were not times of a collective creative process. Quite the opposite.

If you’re looking for an example of a collective creative process, think about the Apollo Project from the 1960’s. (Just for a quick reference point so what I’m saying doesn’t seem like an abstract idealist pipe dream.)

Here are a few things to know. There is no inherent conflict between capitalism and democratic socialism. There is between communism and capitalism. I’ll say more about this later.

But in these days of trying to make the opposition seem like the biggest idiot there is, the terms are made to sound as pejorative as can be.

Remember, if we get rid of “ism” we can have an interesting exploration of ideas. Money is a good thing. Without it, we would have to barter chickens for a ticket to the movies. Hard to put chickens in your wallet. Money is capital. Drop the “ism” and we get to appreciate how great the invention of money has been.

Those who glorify the free market make that into an “ism.” If we really understood exactly what is being glorified, it is a self-organizing system. What we have come to understand from structural dynamics is this: self-organizing systems ALWAYS develop into structural conflicts.

In a true free market self-organizing systems without any controls, people would put lead in your milk, sell you electric equipment that could burn your house down, and do other things to beat the system that would be harmful to society. Some people who have turned this idea of the “wisdom” of the free market would say, “Yeah, but after a while, people would stop buying the milk that has lead in it.” Of course, lots of kids would have been damaged by then. And still, some would still try to get away with it to succeed in the market.

A totally free market is not conducive to a collective creative process.

But a totally controlled market kills invention, individuality, and advancement. This is also not conducive to a collective creative process.

Take these two principles together, and that raises the practical and useful question, just how much do we need to regulate the market? Take away the “ism,” and there can be some very beneficial answers. Take away the “ism,” and we can experiment and correct if we’ve gone too far on one side or the other.

Some things we can do better on our own. Some things we can do better together. We want the best of both worlds. I’ve always thought the argument people love to have – is healthcare a privilege or a right – is silly. It is one of those things that tries to force people into a belief system. Fight it out. Privilege or right? Duel at dawn. Choose your weapons.

A not silly question is this: what type of healthcare system do we want to create? Absent is the “ism,” and present is the possibility of invention, clear outcomes, and good sense, both short term and long term. Short term: address people’s immediate health needs. Long term: help people live healthier lives so there is less need for short term care.

Democracy, as a collective creative process, means we are taking collective action to have what we want come into being. As I’ve been saying for decades, creating is NOT problem solving and problem solving is NOT creating. We can solve all of our problems and still not have created what we want.

There is a place for problem solving, but if that is all we do, we will have created nothing.

So why do the politicians mostly talk in terms of problems? To appeal to the most reactive emotions. To generate outrage, sense of fear, sense of loss, sense of danger. They have not been to “creating school.” They could never make a film, compose music, make a béarnaise sauce, write a novel, or tie their shoes using their way of thinking, let alone run a country.

A collective creative process is one in which we join together to create something we all want.

Throughout the world, democracy is being undermined. One reason, the understanding of what it is, is being distorted and damaged. If it looked like just a bunch of foolish politicians fighting it out about who is the biggest jerk, many people would say, “No thanks.” Some of those who really want to undermine democracy are the ones who want to run it all without other people’s input: the dictators, the tyrants, the autocrats, the authoritarians, and especially the despots. They do not want you to have a say in your own government, nor be able to comment on how they’re doing.

Some of the ways to undermine democracy is to try to limit participation. Could be through limiting voting rights. Could be by trying to convince people it doesn’t matter if you vote. Could be by turning you off, so you don’t care anymore. Could be by trying to establish sides so that people are more motivated to fight with each other than create together.

Real democracy does exist, by the way. It is here in Vermont, where people run their towns by town meetings, and it is surprising how well informed people are, and how well they do without all the political manipulations of an us against them mentality.

Democracy is an invention. It is not a fact of nature. It requires certain prerequisites. A level of education, for example. This is one reason Daniel Webster advocated for public education. He and his contemporaries understood that people, in order to join together in a collective creative process, needed to have a common understanding of the world in which they lived.

Most people want their kids to go to school, college, etc. Most people think education is a good thing. But nowadays, we have the so-called “elite” (the educated people) as somehow against the “common man.” This is just another ploy to try to divide us for political gain. If we do a little thought experiment and change the word “elite” to “educated,” how silly is sounds to criticize a person for being educated. And if, having been educated, they’re so bad, why do we want our children to follow in their footsteps?

One last thing, not all systems are workable at being able to support a collective creative process. Communism is one. Theocracy is another.

The history of communism is simple. No matter how idealist it was in the beginning, it always generates into a dictatorship. This is because it is a system that can’t work structurally. It claims democratic goals, but it is incapable of reaching them.

With theocracies, authority is not from the people, but from those who claim to speak for God, and your job is to just get in line.

The creative process is the most successful process in history. It is philosophically neutral. It promotes learning, cooperation, and, when it is collective, can lead to our ability to create fantastic things we would not be able to accomplish on our own. Things that make our lives better, support our freedom and individuality, and release the highest possibilities in the human spirit.

Most people have expectations about how things will go, how the world is, what the rules of the road are, and what is supposed to happen in most situations. Let’s call these expectations your concepts or ideals. But most often, reality turns out to be different. For some people, they experience a constant battle between their ideals and reality. You can hear them complain about how things are.

What is the basis for their complaints? Let’s think about this structurally. That means, looking at these two elements within the structure – ideal/reality – and how they are connected. The stronger the ideal is held, the more the frustration when reality contradicts it. The less the insistence of the ideal, the more flexible one can be.

Here is a fact. Your ability to create what you want includes the ability to be fluent in reality. The creative process happens in reality. One way to define the creative process is the ability to bring what you want to create into reality. If you are not able to create the results you want in reality, you haven’t actually created it.

A skill to develop, no matter what you thought reality should have been, is to understand reality as it is. What does it matter what preconceived ideas you had, reality shows up as it actually is: real.

Once you are fluent in reality, if you have a vision of what you want to create, you are in a better position to create it. This is pure structural tension. A clear idea of what you want to create along with a clear understanding of the current reality as it is in relationship to your vision.

Notice when you find yourself complaining about how things aren’t the ways they should be. That is an indication of your ideal in conflict with how it really is. Develop a preference for seeing reality accurately, no matter what you happen to expect. As I have said, reality is an acquired taste. A taste that is good to acquire.

I don’t sing because I’m happy,
I’m happy because I sing.
———————-William James

Charles Darwin thought that human beings sang before they developed language. Of course, Darwin was thinking about evolution. Which came first, the music or the words. Darwin’s answer was the music.

Steven Pinker, in his seminal book The Language Instinct, writes that language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. He argues against linguistic determinism because, if people do not have a word for something, they will invent one.

I used to believe in Linguistic Determinism, which was a very popular idea when I was a student. The idea, in a nutshell, is that the structure of language directs the thought process. Therefore, some thoughts would be unthinkable in certain languages. Some of the strongest proponents of this idea were Benjamin Lee Whorfand and Edward Sapir whose names are used in the term “The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” which is the theory that language forms thought. I’ve changed my mind to thought forms language. If we needed a word for something, we would simply create one, as evidenced by all the new computer related terms we now use fluently as if they always existed.

There are two intriguing ideas here.

One is that thought has as much to do with the way music works as it does with the way language itself works. The structure of music is, at its basic root, the tension-resolution system. A tension sets up a dynamic that strives to move toward a resolution. Poet Robert Frost had a notion he called sound sense – that the sound of the language communicated as much or more than the words. To prove his point to a friend, once walking in a field in England, he called over some gobbledygook to a distant farmer that sounded like “Good morning. How are you?” The farmer shouted back, “Fine, and how are you?” Frost was showing how the sound itself carried some of the meaning that communicates content.

There is the antecedent-consequential phrase, which is a form of the tension-resolution system. This is the question-answer, or statement-comment on statement phrase. How are you? Fine, thank you. I love cabbage. Really? I hate cabbage. The tension is formed by the question or statement, followed by the resolution, the answer or comment.

This same structure is at the foundation of the creative process. Tension is followed by resolution. In the form of structural tension, a vision of the desired state combined with an understanding of the current state (if there is a difference) generates a tension, which motivates action to resolve the tension by creating the desired state, ending the difference. You have created your vision.

Now the second intriguing idea is I’m happy because I sing. Let me expand the word “sing” to the word “create.” Most of our society has the impression that we will be happy once we get what we want. In the arts, there is a built in understanding that the creative process itself, brings a type of involvement in which you feel alive, even happy, often even happy when things are going in the wrong direction. Happiness is not the goal. Creating a desired outcome is. Happiness is a by-product. I’m happy BECAUSE I sing is not singing for the sake of being happy, but singing for the sake of the song, itself.